Will this help or damage bitcoin etc

My head hurt after reading that article. Quite poorly written in my opinion.

HGVRHKYY wrote: »

I never read Irish media pieces on crypto, they're usually awful and crypto is such a global market it feels pointless to limit ourselves to relying on standard Irish news outlets for any info on it, they're usually really slow as well

David McWilliams put out a call yesterday on Twitter for an Irish bitcoiner to go on his podcast next week. He briefly touched on BTC on his podcast yesterday.

grindle wrote: »

He'll likely end up with some Irish version of that dullard Peter McCormack, I wouldn't be too enthusiastic about how well-versed they'll be.

LOL.. I listen to McCormack's podcast.. entertaining sometimes but he's clearly drunk too much of the kool aid..

I doubt if McWilliams will get on anyone too smart for him, as he likes to come across as the brightest kid in the class..

mcriot29 wrote: »

https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2021/0525/1223746-digital-euro-ecb-cryptocurrency/

It won't make any difference, a digital euro is pointless anyway. Let's not just created another tether and peg it to the euro

Deleted User wrote: »

I'm surprised to find out the money in my bank account is not legal tender

Only notes and coin are legal tender. Your bank account is valuable because you can convert any or all of it to notes and coin at any time.

The answer to the OP's question is: if the ECB's plans are successful, that will tend to diminish the potential utility of cryptocurrencies and so reduce their value. But the extent to which this will happen depends on the extent to which crypto's present value represents any genuine and widespread expectation that they will ever be used as a transactional currency on a wide scale. The more that people already discount that possibility, the less impact the ECB's plans will have.

Deleted User wrote: »

I'm surprised to find out the money in my bank account is not legal tender

And actually it doesn't even belong to you anymore. Essentially as soon as you deposit money to a bank account you are lending it to your bank. I.e. the bank owns that money and can redeploy it any way it likes (within the boundaries of solvability ratio regulations). While it looks like money as you can spend it with a payment card, your deposit actually is an acknowledgement of debt from the bank to you, which they have to repay upon your request (and if they can!).

A digital euro would change that altogether, as it would be the digital equivalent of cash. I.e. a full bearer asset representing central bank money with not counterparty except the central bank. Depending on how they implement it, it could actually completely change (and hurt) the business of commercial banks. I.e. if one has a choice between lending their money to a fractional reserve bank with no interest in exchange (as per today's bank accounts) v.s. holding that money directly with the central bank, quite likely they will chose the second option as this is removing a risky part from the equation. The main reasons people chose option one today is that cash isn't practical to store large amounts and in many cases is seen as less practical to make payments vs digital transactions. But a digital euro could bridge that gap.

The above is all good and well for depositors (not for banks) and is likely the way CBDCs will be promoted to them. But of course the evil corollary is that if/when everyone adopts central bank digital currency, then the central bank becomes a financial Big Brother with full visibility and control over everyone's money and financial transactions.

Peregrinus wrote: »

The answer to the OP's question is: if the ECB's plans are successful, that will tend to diminish the potential utility of cryptocurrencies and so reduce their value.

The strongest impact would be on stable coins IMO. I.e. if you can own digital dollars issued directly by the Fed and which support similar functionality, then Tether looks a lot less interesting.

But if you take Bitcoin, even though it was partly the goal of the original white paper I don’t think it really is trying become a transactional fiat currency replacement anymore (although the original white paper possibly had that in mind). It is drifting more and more towards digital gold.